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Monday, January 27, 2014

Thirty years after their last match,
two retired boxers are coaxed back into the ring for one final match,
but great and deeply entrenched personal animosity between the two
means that this is one match that is about a lot more than just
sportsmanship.

What we thought

Saying that Grudge Match is the
long-awaited answer to who would win in a fight between Sly
Stallone's charmingly fictional Rocky Balboa and Robert Deniro's take
on the decidedly charmless and sadly all too real Jake La Motta,
might seem like a great way to sell the film, but bringing up either
Rocky or Raging Bull in this context is a frankly disastrous mistake.

While I have always hated Raging Bull
because of just how hateful its lead character is, it's impossible to
deny what an artistic triumph that film was (Raging Bull remains,
incidentally, my go to answer for explaining how far apart objective
criticism and personal taste can sometimes be) and having Grudge
Match evoke that 1980 masterpiece is kind of like someone teasing you
with scotch fillet, while you're trying to wolf down a borderline
inedible fast food burger.

Similarly, though Rocky doesn't have
quite so high a reputation, it remains arguably the greatest sports
movie ever and (most of) its sequels are still the textbook example
of how to transition from an awards-winning artistic triumph to
crowd-pleasing b-movie goodness and, again, there's nothing about
Grudge Match that is anywhere near this remarkable. It is perhaps
somewhat tonally consistent with Rockys III and IV but if you're
hoping for anything in Grudge Match to reach the glorious daft
heights of having Sly's alter ego basically KOing communism
single-handedly then you're in for a bitter, bitter disappointment.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I may, as always, have some catching up to do but there was no way that I wasn't going to give at least a quick look into one of the past year's best and most important films.

Giving my highest of highest recommendations to Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave may come with the caveat that it is a truly grueling, almost physically difficult film to sit through, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't earn every one of those ten stars and it certainly doesn't mean that you shouldn't race out to see it - just be prepared for a cinematic experience that is anything but fun.

In the same way that Schindler's List was far from the first film to deal with the Holocaust but has gone down as the one Holocaust film that everyone needs to see, 12 Years a Slave will very possibly go down as the quintessential American slavery film. Also, like Schindler's List, this astonishingly true tale of Solomon Northop (played here with understated, mesmeric brilliance by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man living in 19th century New York who gets kidnapped and sold off as a slave, was both woefully under-reported prior to the release of the film (hands up anyone who has actually read Northop's memoirs) and manages to shed a whole new light on a familiar subject by focusing on someone who was, in many ways, an outsider to the catastrophic and tragic events happening around them.

Northop was not, in any way, your typical slave as rather than being born broken into a system that basically stripped you of humanity from birth, he spent much of his life as a free man, one who matched his white friends and colleagues note for note when it came to sophistication, education and great refinement. While most of us (though I fear "most" might be something of an exaggeration) may not even begin to imagine the mindset of your average slave, Solomon is someone with whom the vast majority of Western audiences can very easily relate. When Solomon, therefore, is sold into slavery for, as the title suggests, more than a decade of his life, we gain an insight into the horrors, the cruelties and dehumanization of life as a slave in a way that I dare say we never have before. No, not even in Django Unchained!

Sunday, January 12, 2014

No, seriously. This one really ain't for the kids. It's kinda great though.And hey, I just realized. Wolf of Wall Street is basically The Great Gatsby on acid... or is that Quaaludes? And they both star Leo DiCaprio in the title role... what are the odds?This review is also up at Channel 24

What it's about

The true story of Jordan Belfort that
tracks the ups and downs of his wildly freewheeling life from rookie
stock broker to major mover and shaker to major target of the federal
government to his inevitable downfall.

What we thought

Martin Scorsese's latest depiction of
sordid humanity has been called everything from “his best film
since Goodfellas” to “disgusting” but though just about
everything about The Wolf of Wall Street is admittedly hyperbolic by
nature, such hysterical observations only serve to obscure both all
that is great about the film, as well as its few missteps.

First, the idea that Wolf is some sort
of return to form is obviously absurd when you consider just how very
much on form Scorsese has been since the release of The Departed back
in 2006. With brilliant rock documentaries (The Rolling Stones' Shine
a Light and George Harrison: Living in the Material World), acclaimed
TV series (Boardwalk Empire) and, of course, great films, including
the deliciously pulpy Shutter Island and the outright magical Hugo
under his belt, the past eight years at least have been a wonderful
time to be a Scorsese fan.

As for the foaming-at-the-mouth
attacks against the film, that Wolf of Wall Street has been labelled
“disgusting” and “obscene” is basically a feather in its cap.
Whether or not the film has come any closer than any of his other
recent projects at matching the sheer quality of Goodfellas, which is
considered by many to be Scorsese's masterpiece, is of secondary
importance to the fact that it is probably his most Goodfellas-like
movie in terms of subject matter and structure.

So, this week at the cinema is all about the sexy time - though in a way that isn't always that comfortable. Either way, whatever you do, don't check out the two big new releases this week with your parents or kids. Or perhaps even your significant other, come to think of it.This review is also up at Channel 24

What it's about

Jon (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is in many
respects a regular joe who is close to friends and family, attends
church regularly and works a basic job, but his tendency to objectify
everything from cars to his body to members of the opposite sex means
that he finds it all but impossible to form a meaningful, committed
relationship with a woman – a problem that is exacerbated by his
obsession with pornography. Things soon start to change for Jon
though,when he meets and falls for the voluptuous, sexy Barbara
(Scarlett Johansson) whose own obsession with Hollywood's depiction
of romance means that she too has trouble managing her expectations
in relationships.

What we thought

Joseph Gordon Levitt has come a long
way from the young, scrawny kid who were first introduced to in the
intergalactic sitcom, Third Rock from the Sun. From Third Rock he
went on to become a very promising teen actor in rock solid teen
comedies like 10 Things I Hate About You, before becoming the
versatile and massively talented adult actor whose uncanny ability to
straddle the line between movie star and character actor has resulted
in some very memorable roles in such notable films as 500 Days of
Summer, 50/50, Inception, Looper and Lincoln. As such, his being
exceptionally good in the titular role of Don Jon is hardly
surprising, but the same certainly can't be said of his work behind
the camera as Don Jon marks the young but veteran actor's (32 years
old but with some 63 acting credits to his name) directorial debut.

The history of cinema is littered with
actor-turned-filmmakers and though many of these “hyphenated
talents” have churned out some seriously exceptional films in their
time, few have made so gutsy an opening statement as Gordon-Levitt.
Take, for example, Lake Bell whose In A World presented us with a
clearly very talented filmmaker who had before that largely been
unfairly ignored as a seriously charming and funny leading lady but
while In a World was an effortlessly enjoyable charmer, it never
aimed anywhere near as high as Gordon-Levitt does in his own
auspicious debut.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Two friends decide to rob the armoured
car depository where the one works as a security guard but with a
hardened cop on the one side and some seriously shady criminals on
the other, things quickly start to go wrong.

What we thought

Despite its title, Empire State is
neither about one of the tallest buildings in the world, nor is it
about the fictional Marvel Comics university and that's unfortunate
because what the film is really about is far less interesting than a
straight documentary on either of those things could ever hope to be.
Empire State is the name of the place that our two anti-heroes decide
to rob in the, what, third film released this year about a bunch of
dopes finding out that there's no such thing as a simple crime?

Admittedly, it's no where near as
awful as The Counsellor but it's also nowhere near as much fun (in a
grotty, dirty, unbalanced kind of way) as Pain and Gain and
considering how often this particular kind of crime story has been
tackled in every storytelling medium possible, losing out to a film
made by Michael Freakin' Bay just isn't good enough. I've said this
alarmingly often over the past year but, once again, the problem with
the film isn't that it's terrible, as much as it's really, really
mediocre – and considering how well established the genre to which
it belongs undoubtedly is, being mediocre is almost worse than being
terrible.

But then, considering how director
Dito Montiel (Fighting, A Guide to Recognising Your Saints) has
basically made a career out of gritty, testosterone driven dramas,
it's not exactly surprising that his latest feels like just another
day at the office. It certainly doesn't help that in the lead he cast
Liam Hemsworth who has neither the right kind of screen presence nor
has he shown, to date, the acting chops needed for this kind of film
and while the Rock does his Rock thing as only he can, this crime
film's biggest crime is how it wastes a talented actress as good as
Emma Roberts on a pitiful, helpless girlfriend role.

I don't have internet access for most of this week, so you're going to have to wait a little longer for my year-end roundup and for some mini reviews of a bunch of films currently on circuit that are actually worth your time. For now though, here are two of my reviews that were published over at Channel 24 this past weekend. Sorry for the delay.Check it out Channel 24 as well, if you're so inclined.

What it's about

Carrie White is a shy girl, raised by
an overbearing ultra-religious mother who, while trying to navigate
the embarrassments and cruelty that comes with being a high school
outcast, has to come to terms the very powerful and very deadly
telekinetic powers that she has suddenly started to develop.

What we thought

I am probably going to get a lot of
flack for this but I was never the biggest fan of the original
Carrie. Stephen King, who authored the novel on which both Carrie
films are based, may consider it to be one of the most successful
adaptations of his many, many works but I found its dramatic, high
school elements to be more than a little naff and its horrific
elements entirely non-horrific. It had a strong performances from
Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie and, being a Brian De Palma film, it
certainly had visual style, but it's far from the best horror film of
the 1970s.

With that in mind then, I approached
this remake with a touch of optimism added to my usual apathy or
outright cynicism towards this never ending stream of horror remakes.
While I will never understand why anyone thought “updating” stone
cold classic like The Wicker Man, Psycho or Evil Dead was a good
idea, the significantly more flawed Carrie could certainly be
improved on. This is especially so because in the nearly-forty-years
between the original Carrie and its latest and biggest remake (it was
already remade as a not very well received TV movie in 2002) have
seen TV shows like Freaks and Geeks and My So Called Life inject some
much needed realism into high school dramas, while Buffy the Vampire
Slayer (the TV show, obviously) built upon and bettered the
supernatural/ teen angst combination of De Palma's film.

It is with no small amount of relief
therefore that I can officially proclaim the new version of Carrie to
be, by far, one of the best – if not the best – horror remakes of
the last decade, if not longer. It's far from perfect, to be sure, as
it still shares one major problem with the original and it certainly
never matches De Palma's version in terms of visual ingenuity, but
this is the very rare case where I can honestly say that you can
gladly watch the remake rather than the original. Besides, in terms
of its visuals, Carrie (2013) my not match the original but at least
it avoids that vomitous yellow-red tinge that has made most modern
horror remakes visually repulsive in a way that has little to do with
the actual horror.

About This Blog and Its Author

My name is Ilan Preskovsky and I've been working as a journalist/ writer/ critic for the past six (?!) years. When I'm not writing feature articles for Jewish Life Magazine or trying to scrounge up work like every other poor freelancer, I like to write about movies - and, indeed, sometimes even watch them. I write about them both professionally, as a critic for Channel 24, and as an amateur enthusiast for this site. I also love comic books, music, novels, certain non-fiction books and TV and I may even write about them from time to time.

This here blog (named with all the swagger and bubbly self-confidence for which I am barely known) is simply a collection of my various writings, both professional and amateur, and therefore should be taken as the opinions of one man and one man only. This man, of course, in case you were wondering, is a middle class, South African, (Modern) Orthodox Jew with a rather unhealthy love for pop culture and passionate, humanist writing. But, hey, isn't everyone?

Because Everybody Else Has One is consistently inconsistently updated and is no doubt full of errors when not edited properly, but do feel free to leave comments, both about specific posts and the site in general, and let me know what you think. Agree? Disagree? Want to burn my house down with me in it (I'm looking at you Underworld fans)? Bring it on. Bring it all on.